Britain's brewers and drinkers alike have slammed Gordon Brown's decision to hike beer duty in today's Budget.
Both the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) have come out in protest at the penny a pint slapped on the industry in today's Budget.
Other Budget measures affecting the pub trade include a 4p rise on a bottle of wine and duty frozen on sprits and cider.
Mark Hastings, director of communications of the BBPA, said it was disappointing that Gordon Brown continued to choose a tax strategy which "favours imported Australian chardonnay over home produced British beer".
"In recent years, there has been a surge in wine drinking and the strength of wine we drink. Yet while stronger beer is taxed more than weaker beer, stronger wine is taxed the same as weaker wine," he said.
"The result of taxing wine at flat rates is that the most popular wines in Britain enjoy a tax advantage over beer, which is taxed on a sliding scale according to alcoholic strength. This now costs the Treasury up to £170m in lost revenue every year."
Mr Hastings added that the BBPA had been looking for a tax freeze - and that the government's own figures showed a beer duty freeze would have been good both for beer and Treasury revenues.
CAMRA had also been pressing for a freeze, or even a drop, in beer duty to tackle the price differential between UK beer and foreign imports.
"A tax rise is a flawed strategy which will cost jobs, increase smuggling and uncontrolled drinking and leave responsible beer drinkers out of pocket," claimed CAMRA chief executive Mike Benner.
"A penny may not sound like much, but today's tax rise follows recent wholesale beer price rises by some brewers. Some pubs will now be charging as much as 10 pence a pint more than they were only a month ago. At a time when beer consumption is falling and pub-going is in decline this is a potentially devastating outcome for consumers and hard-working licensees."
Mr Benner criticised Coors and Carlsberg for sending the wrong message to the Chancellor by increasing beer prices only last month.
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